


Lonely Hearts Club Off-Season Super Special: Killing Game Cuties!

by mediocre_kazoo_player



Category: New Dangan Ronpa V3: Everyone's New Semester of Killing
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Canon, But it'll be hella oumota centric so I don't think I'll tag them yet, F/M, M/M, Soulmate AU but not really, There's technically other pairings
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-26
Updated: 2018-02-12
Packaged: 2019-03-09 15:51:29
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 7,634
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13484790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mediocre_kazoo_player/pseuds/mediocre_kazoo_player
Summary: Eight bachelors! Eight bachelorettes! Sixteen young men and women who watched and waited during their teenage years as everyone else found soulmates—and they didn't. Things are looking desperate, but the LHC is back at it again. Will these sixteen Loveless be saved, or will the LHC's efforts be in vain? Featuring all your favorites from the (in)famous 53rd season of Danganronpa!(Blurb reproduced with permission from the official website of Project Lonely Hearts Club, a subsidiary of Team Danganronpa, Inc.)15:22 Anonymous: I'll be Harumaki's soulmate<315:22 Anonymous: How'd they get all 16 of them on board?! hyaaa15:23 Anonymous: Ouma-kun looks like he wants to die lol [oumadespairface.3dg] [Download?]→ 15:26 Anonymous: The smile on my face is also a lie...→ 15:26 Anonymous: lololol he's given up completely





	1. Chapter 1

**Saihara Shuuichi on ending the killing game once and for all**

_Matsuda Nobuyuri, Shin Tokyo Groove_

Now that he's had a year to recover from his experience, everyone's favorite teen detective is set on reforming standards for psychology research both in his native Japan and across the world.

 _Danganronpa_ , the now-discontinued killing game show, has been the source of much interesting experimental data on the human mind for the past decade. Though its fruits have fueled several breakthroughs in the fields of sociology and psychology, Saihara believes it has overstayed its welcome.

"To this day, I'm not sure how so many of us were fine with watching an overblown Milgram experiment happen on live TV over and over," he told reporters at a conference in Akihabara last week. "Even I used to be that way. But now I see that I had no idea what it was really like in there."

Saihara has started an international petition for institutional review boards everywhere to update their definitions of informed consent to exclude situations like the killing game. Along with a fellow V3 participant, Akamatsu Kaede, he is also a crucial member of the Danganronpa Aftermath Support Network, aiding victims and survivors of the game alike on the long road to recovery.

The reaction to his mission has been mixed. Many fans have praised his decision and offered their support, but critics lambast him for ruining one of the most influential and highly-rated television series of all time.

Saihara seems to understand their anger, but holds his ground. "I won't deny the help it's given to researchers, but the archival data should be more than enough now," he said. "It's not worth the pain it causes."

Despite his celebrity status, Saihara has also humbly chosen to continue his high school education. The students at Spring Field Academy have welcomed him back with open arms.

_Subscribe to the Shin Tokyo Groove news feed for updates!_

{...}

SPECIAL EXHIBITION IN OAK ROOM A: YONAGA ANGIE

> Join us for a fun afternoon with Yonaga Angie-chan of Danganronpa V3 fame! She will be leading us in a wax sculpting workshop and then an island ritual pertaining to the great Atua. Light refreshments will be provided. Entry fee 5000 yen.

{...}

**Four years after V3, Shirogane Tsumugi still receives death threats**

_Tuesday 10:10 AM_

_by Lindsay Burnham_

"It's part of the job description, I'm afraid," Shirogane sighs in a video uploaded to the official Team Danganronpa website on Saturday. (You can view the video here.)

Being the final mastermind, she has received the brunt of the fury of disappointed killing game fans. They have sent her complaints ranging from irritation at how "plain and boring" her character was to gruesome descriptions of ways they would have liked to execute her. As Shirogane is more than familiar with the Danganronpa fanbase, she remains unfazed by these comments.

What's different this time is that former contestant Harukawa Maki recently made a scathing remark about Shirogane that went viral. It has since been deleted from her social media accounts, but the mark of this public condemnation cannot be so easily erased.

Since the remark involved a challenge for Shirogane to come out from behind the layers of security her powerful employer provides, many have been waiting for her response.

In the video, Shirogane describes how she does not feel any ill will towards Harukawa, and that she understands why she may feel that way. However, she pointedly clarifies that according to higher-ups in Team Danganronpa, it is still not safe for her to resume life as a normal Japanese citizen. She will remain under their protection indefinitely.

{...}

**Taking hold of the gaming industry again: Danganronpa VR sales immediately skyrocket**

_Nakagawa Ken, Weekly Games Report_

Team Danganronpa returns to a familiar arena with the highly-anticipated Danganronpa VR. As always, it has audience opinions split down the middle with half raving that they're finally having the experience they'd dreamed of all along and the other half trashing the buggy trial modes and questionable graphics. A new fad even involves people taking pictures of their avatars clipping through walls in ridiculous ways within the killing game simulation.

It's becoming clear what kind of game will define this year. Along with the North American smash-hit release SBURB Gamma, Danganronpa VR is becoming an integral part of daily lives everywhere. Parents have raised concerns that this kind of immersive experience is far too distracting for a child's own good.

Read more...

{...}

Guess who I bumped into going back to the hotel after DRCon Day 5?!?! #LuminaryOfTheStars #eeeeeeeeeeeeeee

{...}

**Where has Ouma Kokichi been hiding?! My Sunday run-in with the Ultimate Supreme Leader in a coffee shop!**

_Miyabe Seiko_

A dreary Sunday morning, 9 AM. It was raining all night so the tips of my sneakers were soaked by the time I got to the cafe, which isn't even that far from my apartment. I was ready to order my usual cappuccino and head back out for a brisk morning walk, but something, or should I say _someone_ , caught my attention.

A svelte young man was standing in line in front of me, tapping his foot. He wore a long gray coat and his straight black hair was cropped to about chin length. Momentarily, he turned around to examine the gummy penguins hanging on the rack beside him and I froze.

Even though he had changed his hairstyle and was wearing clothes vastly different than his killing game costume, I instantly recognized his face. I don't remember what kind of greeting I stuttered out, but he turned towards me so casually it was like he hadn't been hiding from the public eye for six whole years at all! I could feel people staring at us, mostly at him, and I felt like my heart was everywhere except my chest.

Thankfully, Ouma-kun saved me by initiating a friendly chat. As we stood in line, he poked fun at the hair clips I was wearing that day and told me to get something different for once. "Aah, Miyabe-chan is so boring. Why don't we find out how many espresso shots they're legally allowed to put in one drink, hm?" I think he said. I was so embarrassed but so so happy I got to meet him...!!

He's really grown into a handsome young man, you know? After a lot of flustered babbling I offered to buy him a drink and he easily accepted, which made me super super giddy. The drink he got was really plain, but he put a lot of sugar in it after he picked it up.

We spent some time chatting about various things that I was too nervous to remember properly, but I know it was nice. I'm sorry to say that my mistake was bringing up Danganronpa. He gave me this weird look and went, "Does anyone care about that show anymore? 'Cause I don't. Man, it's so boring."

People were still staring at us, so I guess I felt an obligation to push further. I probably asked him something about what he thought of Saihara-kun ending the show, I don't remember, but I know his response almost by heart.

"I think," he said, flashing me a charming smile, "that you should let me get my dead-end IT job and rot away at the call desk in peace."

With that, he excused myself, leaving me with a bunch of folded bills—the price of his drink—and a strange mix of guilt and satisfaction welling up inside me.

I guess that's Ouma-kun for you.

{...}

"All of them? All sixteen? There's a stand-in for one of them, I bet."

"Toujou's face looks kinda off. It's totally a stunt double."

"No, that's just because her other eye is showing, idiot."

"No, it's definitely kinda off—"

"Look! Look, it's identical!"

"Shut up, you two."

"Whaaaaat, all of them are there? Wait, that means Ran-chan...!"

"Saki, it's been seven years. You can't still be obsessed with him."

"Well, yeah, but like. For nostalgia's sake?"

"..."

"Fine, I might still have a problem."

"Ahaha."

"Ugh, this is gonna suck big time. They're pandering, but I don't even know if bringing the V3 guys back will make this cheesy dating show anything special."

"Well, I get to see my Ran-chan again, so I'm happy."

"Of course you are."

"When's it airing?"

"First episode's Friday evening."

"Wow, it's a big deal."

"Meet up at my house to watch it, maybe?"

"Sure."

"Okay!"

"Yeah, I don't have work that day."

"It's a date!"


	2. Chapter 2

Two points. Two points. One point. Two and a half for missing the unit. Hey—three points! Two points. One point. No points, fuck you.

Momota stares at the compressed, red skin between the first and second knuckles of his middle finger and wonders how many different ways an idiot can overestimate the time it takes for a shot put ball to roll down a ramp. The blue pen (red is too harsh) waddles back into the groove it has made and he grimaces at the rawness of the indent. Almost makes him want to risk grading physics quizzes with his left hand just so he's not stuck with a permanent pen-shaped callus on his right when he's fortysomething.

Fortysomething. He's more than halfway there. Thankfully no gray hairs yet. Probably not a good look for him. Absentmindedly, he gives his non-dominant hand a spin, writing a wobbly "3" that looks like it means three, I'm three years old, and I should have signed this fridge gallery oeuvre with a crayon and not a Bic pen that dries up every time the wind in Berlin blows south!

He tosses the pen back over to his right hand and goes over the lines again and again until the three-year-old is wearing one of those starchy grayish ensembles his mom thinks is real cute and shuffling around in his dad's shoes.

Next comes a chain of straight 2's. Apparently the phrasing of the question was off or something, because they're all starting to make the same mistake. Maybe later today he'll take it up with the head of the course and give them all a point back. Momota Kaito, big damn hero with a pen holder built into his right hand by the end of tonight if he decides to go through with writing all those +1's. His back starts to complain.

He sits up with a sick crunching noise and marvels at the resilience of his vertebrae. There's just so many of these damn...and then there's the written homework from...

If there'd been anyone around, he'd have groaned loudly to protest this perceived abuse, but it's only him and the light whirr of his computer fans in this room. So he scribbles a wobbly blue worm on the side of his thumb instead.

See, it's symbolic. It's a worm because he feels limp like a worm. It's wobbly because that's how his head feels right now, bobbling between mechanically finishing the task at hand and taking an involuntary nap. It's blue because blue means sad and the wobbly blue worm stands out starkly on the tannish stretch of his thumb because it's lonely.

The worm has grown into a very big adult worm and it has found its way to Momota's wrist.

Like everyone else's, the inside of Momota's wrist is adorned with some semblance of a heart-shaped tattoo. Except these come naturally. It starts out blotchy like a birthmark when you're young and as you grow older it sharpens into a heart. And the crowning moment of your greasy adolescence, everyone knows, is when you lock eyes with that special someone and there's a miraculously bright flash of bioluminescence coming out of that little thing.

After the flash, the heart is filled in.

Momota stares at the outline of his empty soul mark and the teal-blue veins running underneath it. What could have gone wrong? "Urgh," he says, and his computer fans agree. A host of unpleasant and desperate mind-chatter returns to him now that the shot put balls have stopped rolling.

Back then? Those were the days. He'd had _girlfriends_. With an S, plural, thank you very much. He winces a little at the part of his brain that still finds something to brag about in the numbers. He's got no right to do that now. None, after his dating pool has slowly dwindled down to the paltry puddle of losers like him who hadn't made the big connect during the summer after their sixteenth birthday. There's no point to pursuing anyone now, either, since no one would want him anyway if he wasn't their one and only.

Well.

Even if it's late, he still has time, right? The pen pokes at him, drying up again. Momota tugs the cuff of his sleeve over the soul mark half-filled with smudges of blue ink.

His body crunches again as he rises from his seat and he wonders inwardly if he's on the fast track to forty. (If he's on the fast track to dying alone, ha ha.)

Don the shoes, out the door, wait, lock the door, there we go. He finds his land legs on the way to the communal kitchen.

It's empty and the fridge is emitting its perpetual drone to several sets of tables and chairs that don't give a twee shit about what it has to say. Momota's here for the usual: can o' Coke, then after it's done, fill it up with tap water and drink the afterimage of sugar as he finishes up with the rest of the stupid papers.

He swings the fridge door open lazily.

What the fuck.

The entire top compartment, where the beverages usually sit, is filled with rows upon rows of grape Panta. Shit, not even rows, they're more like wiggly single-files that bend whichever way will allow for even more Panta bottles to fit in between the ones already there. There's even some squeezed in horizontally on top like bandits navigating a crawlspace.

In his scatterbrained curiosity, Momota peeks up at the storage marvel through the transparent shelving and spots the two remaining cans of Coca-Cola suffocating in a sea of purple. Whoever did this made sure to entrench them there instead of simply pushing them to the back. Who on this green earth...

There's absolutely no way he's going to get those two stragglers out of there at this rate, so he pries out a Panta and calls it a day.

"Momota-kun, hey," says a disembodied voice, punctuating itself with the heavy thud of a messenger bag.

"Shuuichi," he greets, raising his both occupied hand and his Panta-less hand in a salute.

"How's it going?" Saihara asks, rolling up his sleeves as he approaches the sink. There it is, the one solace that Momota has for his woes: his best friend hasn't had the big flash either. Saihara's empty soul mark bobs up and down as he shakes the water droplets off of his fingertips.

"Oh, you know. Been holed up grading papers since I woke up." Momota pulls a face.

Saihara nods sympathetically. The Panta bottle opens with a foamy hiss. "Your course had a quiz recently?"

"Yeah, and I don't think some of these guys even—" Momota has the full intention of taking a sip and then continuing, but the taste of carbonated cough medicine floods his mouth and he's left making a very unattractive expression.

"Are you alright?" Saihara smiles at him with a mixture of concern and amusement as he sputters and searches for an expiration date.

"Fucking disgusting," Momota rasps, wiping at his mouth with the sleeve that doesn't have an embarrassing Bic pen fix-it scribbled in underneath it. "Do you know who did this? Look in there." He indicates the fridge. "I'm even inclined to believe it's a shitty undergrad fermenting these since he gets busted at the bars."

"I don't think that's how that works," Saihara muses, opening the fridge to take a gander. "Ah."

"Yeah. Anyway, how's your day going, sidekick?"

He shuts the fridge again. "It's going fine. Met with my faculty advisor just now, the usual. Honestly, it's like you and him are the only people I really talk to anymore."

Momota fiddles with his sleeve. "Haven't spotted any stray soulmates walking around, huh?"

"Er—no."

"Man, grad school's just a teeming hive of us lonely old men." Momota laughs and Saihara doesn't; Saihara stays quiet for about a second too long.

"Guess so. Do you want to go get lunch?"

Momota stiffens, gives his phone a frantic jostle, and blanches at the time. "Ahah, huh, nah. Sorry, dude. My discussion section's at one."

"Oh, right. Forgot." Saihara rubs the back of his head apologetically. "Well, I'll see you around, okay?"

He hoists the bag over his shoulder again and Momota manages to call out a "Seeya, Shuuichi" behind him before he disappears from the doorframe.

Forty minutes to finish grading quizzes. Fuckety fuck. Well, there are some sort of immoral heroes out there, yes? Ones that hand out a bunch of full scores without looking at the papers when they're in a rush? It's certainly a tempting option.

Eh...it wouldn't be fair to everyone he did grade, though. And the thought of what might happen if he gets caught isn't too appealing.

A shot put ball and a bunch of 2's roll across his mindscape. Fight unfairness with unfairness. Got it.

In his room, he scribbles his lie across a whole stack of papers, shoves it in a folder, and shoves the folder in his backpack triumphantly. He's going to make their day.

There's still ten minutes before he has to leave, so he loiters in the kitchen to toss his unfinished Panta in the trash and leave a friendly note in the fridge.

> (An arrow pointing to the top shelf, since there's nowhere to even wedge a piece of paper up there.) Did your drinks go bad? I grabbed one and it tasted weird.

Aaaaand time. Momota sets out for the physics building.

The rustle of laughter which passes through the classroom when he stage-whispers that he gave them all full scores anyway is everything he'd hoped for. The kids really like him. Er, the younger adults. It's hard not to see them as kids for some reason.

He receives a mouthful from the one girl who always banters with him, as expected. She's one of those people who's obnoxious in an endearing way and has a sadly conspicuous woven bracelet strapped over her left wrist. Nobody asks why it's there, perhaps out of a unanimous sympathy. Momota hates, hates, hates that his every comeback to her witty remarks is soiled with a reproachful undercurrent of "Dude, she's barely eighteen".

Arbitrarily, he also hates that her eyes are purple.

He leaves discussion with his ego in a positive feedback loop. One good deed down, another to come—the convenience store is a bit of a walk, but he returns to his apartment complex fast enough toting a bag of assorted beverages and a sandwich for later.

There's his Coke, some green tea, and several kinds of semisweet chilled coffee for when Saihara gets up way too early. Momota's the best friend ever, the best.

He cracks open the fridge, aiming for the second shelf down.

> Wow, you stole from my Panta stash and you have the nerve to brag about it? You better pay up. >:(
> 
> (Several arrows indicating a crude rectangle about the size of a paper bill.) You can leave the money here.
> 
> (In tiny letters, near the bottom edge of the rectangle.) Haha, did you fall for that? Stuuupid.

The most offensive item at the crime scene is a purple Crayola marker. Momota's eye twitches.

Whichever self-absorbed dickless dicksauce feels the need to leave this kind of annoying message when he's being _so nice buying all these drinks to share_ can suck a big fat wang. No, seriously. Panta boy can give him a big ol' blowie. He pops out a bunch of Pantas and shoves them all gracelessly onto the second shelf for second-class citizens, _fuck you_ , and puts the beverages he purchased on the top shelf with the coffees at the front for _Saihara,_ who's a _reasonable_ tenant and a _great_ friend.

Momota draws back as the fridge door closes, a little guilty for his outburst but still unconvinced that the object of his distaste isn't at least somewhat deserving of this relatively mild retaliation. He stretches.

His backpack slouches in the chair at the head of the table, a quiet companion for a modest convenience store lunch. Momota unwraps the sandwich, takes a bite, and nearly pisses himself.

From absolutely nowhere at all, a figure in baggy gray sweatpants and an equally ugly hoodie hurtles towards the door, smacks into the wall next to it courtesy of the—is that a—okay, there's a paper bag over their head—and, finding their bearings again, stumbles out of the kitchen.

Momota briefly considers moving back into the dorms.

He's sure he would've shat an entire brick if the incident had happened at night, but with the early afternoon light streaming in through the sliding windows, he's content with messaging Saihara about it. He chuckles when a line of question marks pops up in response. Yeah, he's got questions too. Lots. He returns to his sandwich.

Two hours later, he's dawdling around in his room with his web browser opened up to twenty different articles he's only partially finished, each goading him onto another with their flashy hyperlinked keywords.

Three hours later, he's forcing himself to grade worksheets again. He takes far longer than he should.

Saihara graciously invites him to dinner around six, and Momota obliges this time. Two lonely old men dining together in a seedy Mexican restaurant because they've got no fiancees to drag them off to a swankier establishment. Saihara reminds him that neither of them have hit the midpoint of their twenties yet. But Momota feels old, feels like he's left his golden years behind, feels like the climax of his life wasn't what it was meant to be and that now he's standing in the cold dampness of an uneventful denouement.

He doesn't say it out loud, though. Just admits that Saihara's right and wraps another taco.

In the wee hours of past-midnight-before-dawn, Momota's head is a murky salad of Saihara, Panta, paper bags, and blue pen. It's at this hour that the effort of getting ready for bed becomes so astronomically high it prevents him from dragging himself away from his computer chair at all. The twenty articles from before are incomprehensible. He closes some of them, breathing heavily to keep himself awake. It's less effort than drifting off to sleep, strangely.

The effort it takes to register the buzz of his phone is barely low enough, but he begrudgingly does it, expecting one of his buddies from the astronomy department or Saihara looking for company during the middle pages another dry report. It's neither.

> HELLO MOMOTA KAITO
> 
> ♡♡  WE'RE THE LONELY HEARTS CLUB  ♡♡ 
> 
> OUR RECORDS INDICATE THAT YOUR STATUS IS:
> 
> ♡♡  LOVELESS  ♡♡ 
> 
> AND THAT WON'T DO! NOT AT ALL! SO IT'S UP TO YOU TO PLAY OUR LITTLE GAME UNTIL YOU'RE IN LOVE, IN LOVE, IN LOVE.

He's wide awake.

> YOUR PARTICIPATION IS
> 
> ♡  NOT AN OPTION  ♡ 
> 
> THERE ARE SIXTEEN PLAYERS. THE MOST DILIGENT ONES WILL FIND
> 
> ❤ A TRUE SOULMATE ❤
> 
> AND THE SLACKERS WILL FIND
> 
> ♡  A TRULY HORRIFIC SOULMATE   ♡ 
> 
> ♡♡  STAY TUNED, PLAYER MOMOTA!  ♡♡ 

The interface of his messaging application inverts itself, then blooms into a bawdy triad of red, white, and pink. Even when he exits to his phone's home screen, the coloration persists. His background has been changed to some cheesy heart-shaped logo in the same three sickening hues.

Momota Kaito feels more strongly than ever that he has no idea what is happening to his life.


	3. Chapter 3

It might be seven. He's in consciousness purgatory, fairly sure his alarm hasn't gone off yet but not convinced these heavy things he's moving around under the sheets are his arms. One's heavier than the other. Phone?

Phone. Momota grimaces at the sunlight coming in through the crack in the curtains, hitting his pupil like a bullseye. Oh, fuck that. He moves to cover his face with the phone-hand gestalt, but his phone does this crazy thing where it catches the light just so that the sun's shit-eating reflection hits him square in the eyes again. He crumples into the comforter, a man wounded.

After the insides of his eyelids stop looking like a bright green blob he hazards a glance at his phone's lock screen.

Yep, it's still pinker than the inside of a Sweet and Sassy. He drags his fingers down his face, his unkempt bangs springing out from underneath them as he brings them to a rest underneath the eyebags he's developed in one night. Dermatologists couldn't hate him if they tried. "Goddammit," he mutters.

Momota Kaito goes back to sleep for a few more minutes while his body shuffles in and out of the bathroom. It's only when the cold water comes jetting down all over his bare chest that he jumps and remembers that some freak with a unicode fetish has his number and is not very subtly urging him to throw himself dicklong down the rabbit hole. Eugh. That's a figure of speech he could've done without.

As he soaps down his underarms he reasons that it's probably the work of some shitstain computer science major with nothing better to do. Yeah, he's been down to the their building a couple times to process data from his research, so that's probably where they got his contact info from...his phone's new interface certainly corroborates the idea of a horrid virus-prank conglomerate, anyway. He's going to have to open the damn thing inside his jacket so no one sees.

He feels a migraine coming on from the water thudding against his forehead (seriously, is there any way to adjust the pressure on this thing?) so he ends his shower there. Exit stall, grab towel, dry self, forcibly stuff body into today's clothes, scowl when shirt sticks to slightly wet skin all gross-like this early in the morning. This part of his day's familiar, at least.

Things begin to go awry today in the kitchen. Momota busies himself making an omelette, but when he tries to flip it, it magically transforms into scrambled eggs. Whatever. Enter Saihara, blearily shuffling in with each button of his shirt in the hole above the one it should be in.

Momota scrapes his scrambled eggs onto a plate. "You look like hell, dude."

"...You look hell-er," Saihara slurs. He gets the coffee maker running. It's clear that his movements have been programmed into muscle memory.

"Fair," Momota says, shoveling a forkful of egg into his mouth. "Someone thought it'd be funny to text me a virus at unholy o' clock this morning. Kept me up for a while."

Saihara perks up at this. "What kind of virus?"

Momota grimaces and flashes Saihara his girly home screen for about a second. "Ohhhh, those _fuckers_ ," Saihara groans, provoking raised eyebrows. "Sorry. Caffeine deficient," he says, flapping a hand dismissively. "But, ah, the point is, I received the same thing. It woke me up." He laughs sheepishly, sliding his own phone across the table to Momota.

"Huh," Momota says softly. The text message Saihara received is identical to his, save for the name, of course.

"At first I thought it might be a scam of some sort, but it's not asking us to use a service or provide personal information, so I wonder..."

While Saihara is tapping his chin thoughtfully, staring off into the blue sky beyond their kitchen ceiling, both of their phones light up with one new notification. Two new notifications. Three, four, five—dear god—six, seven—

Momota swallows. "Dude, hey, look. Look!"

They spend a moment watching in wide-eyed wonder as the text scrolls by on their screens, messages popping up one after another, far too quickly to have been inputted by human hands in real time. The stream stops just as quickly as it starts, leaving the two of them duly boggled in its wake.

Saihara speaks first. "That was...far too conveniently timed."

"I bet they got their hands on our location data," Momota scowls.

"Very accurate location data, too, if they're even able to tell that we're in the same room together..."

"Whoa, hey, hey. Maybe it's just a, uh, freaky coincidence," Momota chuckles, blanching. "I mean, it's only happened once so far, and we're in the same place pretty often."

The look of intense concentration furrowing Saihara's brows dissipates quickly. "Oh, yeah. Eheh, maybe it is. I guess I'm overthinking it." He smiles sheepishly.

"That's your forte," Momota says, returning the smile.

Saihara hums in agreement, busying himself with his coffee once more. "Want any?" he offers, but Momota's already feeling more awake than he has for weeks. He scrolls up to the earliest message of the batch and begins reading.

It's disjointed.

> **♡** ARE YOU READY? GAME #1 STARTS NOW! **♡**

Following this declaration is some explanatory jargon and then a long, confusing stretch of what seems to be a poem about a girl searching high and low for a locket given to her by her lover. Somewhere down the line, the poem stops making any sense. The whole thing ends with a cheery—

> **♡** GOOD LUCK EVERYONE! **♡**

Momota looks up and startles briefly at Saihara looming over his shoulder, coffee mug clutched tightly in both white-knuckled hands. "Mine matches yours," he says excitedly, nodding at his own open screen. Momota leans over to read it. "The lines rhyme. 'IN TIME MY RACING FEET DID STOP' on yours, and on mine," Saihara indicates the matching line on his phone, "'BEFORE THE RED-BRICK FLOWER SHOPPE'. There's a florist on Towa Avenue that looks like that!"

There's a childlike glimmer in Saihara's gold eyes and his typically cautious smile has burst outwards to draw his lips back over his teeth crookedly, as if he's afraid to look so happy. What can Momota do but oblige? "Is there?" he prompts, pulling up a search engine.

Sure enough, the Towa Avenue Campus Florist's Shop pops up with its bright-red brick facade. Saihara forgets to keep the coffee inside of his mouth for a split second and claps a hand over his face, mortified. It's kind of cute. Momota laughs, thumping his best friend on the back. "Easy, Shuuichi. Are you free this afternoon?"

 _"Hell yes I am_ ," Saihara gushes, and doesn't blame his potty mouth on the lack of caffeine this time.

{...}

Momota's pen scratches several formulas out onto the verso page of his open notebook, but they don't mean anything and neither does whatever the professor's saying. His phone is open under the tiny fold-out desk attached to his auditorium seat. The florist's seems to be their starting point and also the only explicitly mentioned location. Everything else is described relative to that, so there'll be no skipping forwards. It's a stroke of good luck that he and Saihara happened to have matching instructions. Good luck, that's what it is. That's all it is.

{...}

Saihara has managed to disguise his excitement more carefully by mid-afternoon, when they stand outside the florist's holding their phones side by side, volleying speculations rapidfire on the sidewalk like two madmen. The way Saihara takes the lead is almost too natural, and he figures everything out faster that Momota can get a word in edgewise. Not that Momota minds. There's something nostalgic about this, after all. Makes him think back to when the two of them would play-act at recess back in high school, Saihara as the intrepid detective and Momota as a heroic astronaut. No, those two things didn't mix awfully well, but they managed.

Huh, wait. Play-acting during recess...isn't a high school thing. No high schooler would do that. But didn't he only meet Saihara in high school...?

The two of them cross a busy street. The traffic lights blare under the beating sun, contesting with it for human attention. Momota squints. Oh, he realizes. Duh. He and Saihara had met during primary school. It was then that the play-acting had occurred, not later. Looks like these past few weeks have really taken a toll on his nightly sleep.

The pair of black loafers in front of him rasp to a stop on the rough concrete. Momota wobbles awkwardly at not being given enough time to counteract his previous momentum, managing to still himself after a few back-and-forths on his feet. "What gives?" he asks.

Saihara, who is now grasping both of their phones in his hands, is studying the messages again. "It's not right," he mutters under his breath, his face flushed a bright pink for some reason or another. "Something's missing again, but...no, they still rhyme...how..."

Momota peers over at the messages again somewhat uselessly, because he's well aware by now that if Saihara can't crack this nut there's no way he's going to do it. It's just not his kind of puzzle, he guesses.

Yeah, it's not. He stretches, putting his hands behind his head and leaving matters to his sidekick for a bit. It's a nice change of pace, seeing Saihara so enthusiastic about something. Being out here at this hour, doing something that isn't schoolwork. Drinking in the vast expanses of cumulus cloud above their heads, the trees lining the sidewalks passing a gentle gust of wind down the road to the rest of their brothers, the young men and women flitting in and out of restaurants, clothing stores, and salons...

...And that albino guy on the street corner giving his phone a death glare. Whatever he's looking at is absolutely plastered with a disgusting shade of fuchsia that would give anyone a headache and green afterimage ghosts drifting in their vision after staring at it for too long. The man hits his home button curtly, chewing on his bottom lip with a row of clean white teeth. His home screen pops up, application shortcuts littered over a corny logo Momota knows all too well.

 _Really convenient_ , he muses to himself.

"Hey," he calls out. The stranger doesn't seem to notice. "Hey, you," he tries again.

"Ah—Oh, hello! Sorry! What can I help you with?" The stranger's voice is smooth and pleasant, though pitchy with concern.

Saihara's shooting them a questioning glance. Momota scuffs the pavement with a shoe, trying to figure out how to phrase this. "You here for the uh, Lonely Hearts Club thingamajig?" He winces at saying the name out loud. Which diggity dipshit came up with such a conspicuous title?

Thankfully, the stranger's face lights up at that. "Oh! Yes, I am. I suppose it's only natural that I'd bump into some other players." He sticks out his hand, smiling confidently. "Iidabashi Kiibo. Nice to meet you."

"Momota Kaito. Nice to meet you too." Iidabashi has a firm, interview-ready handshake. "Also," noticing that they happen to have Saihara's full attention by now, "This is Saihara Shuuichi. He's along for the ride too."

Saihara waves shyly, suddenly back to his usual courteous self. "Hello," he offers. Iidabashi beams at him.

It turns out that again, all too conveniently, Iidabashi's messages start to match up with Saihara's and Momota's about halfway through. Momota comments offhandedly that they should come up with a team name, and the three of them share a laugh. They can't settle on anything to call themselves, and eventually Saihara is more than content to juggle all three phones, leading the way. The odd pink flush pigments his cheeks again, and Momota wonders if he's alright.

To pass the time, he makes conversation. Iidabashi turns out to be part of the computer science department here—the artificial intelligence group, to be precise—and is working on a lengthy research project. No, he doesn't think this is the work of any of his colleagues. "It's not like we have the time to pull off something this elaborate," he snorts. "Besides, this is _impressive_. I don't know how they were able to get into our devices like that. I did try poking around, but they sent me some very discouraging messages."

Momota whistles. "Guess we're not figuring this out anytime soon, are we?"

"Heh, probably not."

"Man, this is wild. It's good that we're doing this while it's bright out, or I wouldn't trust those messages for shit."

Iidabashi shudders. "I admit that it still may not be the best idea for us to be doing this at all. Though with the way this is set up, I cannot foresee anything incredibly sinister."

"Yeah, like," Momota gestures vaguely with his hands, "if you told me they were trying to, I dunno, goad us into killing each other with _those_ colors and _that_ logo, I'd have a good ol' laugh." Maybe. He's not too sure, now that he thinks about it.

"Mmm. We'll see." Iidabashi's response isn't the most encouraging, either.

It so happens that Saihara is drawing near the end of the terribly formatted poem, and that the group is drawing near the mechanical engineering building. Iidabashi frowns. "We're going in here?"

"Seems like it," Saihara says, giving the last few lines a once-over and comparing them to their current location. "Here, you two can have your phones back. Sorry, I got a little carried away."

"You need not worry at all, Saihara-kun." Iidabashi slips his phone back in his pocket. Momota observes them almost fondly. If nothing else comes out of this bizarre puzzle, at least they've made a new friend.

According to Saihara, all they have to do now is enter and find the red door. Upon locating it, Iidabashi lets out a groan of dismay at the fact that it requires keycard access. "I do believe that it would be quite hard to fabricate an excuse to get in there," he sighs. "Though we may be able to rely on authorized passerby, if we wait long enough...?"

Saihara puts a hand to his chin, clearly displeased with not being able to obtain the fruits of his two-hour labor. "Well...maybe there's someone in there right now. We could just knock."

"We could, but, er, I-I wouldn't know what reason to give for our presence."

"That's true..."

"I mean, perhaps telling the truth about our situation may prove convincing, but as irrational as it is, I would rather not advertise our involvement with whatever this is."

"Y-yeah. It really is a little embarrassing, isn't it? It could just turn out to be a prank, after all."

"That, and—"

Momota grabs the doorknob and the door swings open.

"Oh," the other two say in unison.

Almost immediately after their entrance, there's a startled yelp from high up towards the ceiling of the dim room. "Hey!" The unseen speaker is female, and her legs appear momentarily, two strips of white under the spotlight bearing down on them all from their right. "Who the fuck said you could come in here? The lock doesn't work, but you gross bastards don't look like anyone from my team, so explain yourselves!"

Momota cranes his neck, trying to get a good look at her obscured face. "Hey, calm down. Someone directed us here, but we don't know why." It's the truth, sort of.

"Ugh," the legs say. There's a mechanical whirring as the arm of the machine she's standing on descends slowly. The rest of her body loads in, revealing a pristine lab coat, a questionably low collar, wild hair that loops out from behind her back like the tentacles of some deep sea creature, a narrow jaw ending in a sharp chin, and...

It happens when you look into your soulmate's eyes for the first time.

"Oh shit," Momota shouts, but it's drowned out by the mystery lady's even louder screech of "HOLY FUCK!"

The room explodes with light. The four of them stumble, wholly blind for a moment or two, but it's incredibly clear where the light is coming from once they regain their bearings. A blazingly bright corona in teal engulfs Iidabashi's left wrist, coloring one half of the scene a luscious blue-green. Whatever remains untouched by Iidabashi's teal is highlighted in a gentle peach-pink, this time emanating from the mysterious lady still descending from the lab's ceiling like a vulgar angel with her lab coat billowing behind her and her sizable cleavage even more pronounced in the glow of her soul mark.

Everything feels like it's moving in slow motion. Iidabashi steps forward, his profile sketched in both their colors, neon creeping up the slender bridge of his nose and setting aflame the tips of his very white hair. His hand outstretched, he gazes meaningfully at his newfound soulmate, whose wild blonde locks still flow gracefully in the air behind her as she reaches out for him too.

They seem to stand in the center of an artificial crater, the encroaching mechanical equipment fended off just enough that there's an approximately circular clearing whose radius extends from Iidabashi's feet. The metal and plastic surrounding them glints in the dark, ten thousand crystals strung in cords from the ceiling or strewn in bright little metallic pieces over the many disorganized workbenches. Now fully illuminated, the mechanical limb supporting Iidabashi's soulmate reveals that it ends in an enormous artificial hand, its passenger perched on its palm. The gleaming metal giant brings her to rest just close enough for her to intertwine her fingers with Iidabashi's, unifying the beautiful lights, unifying two souls.

When the lights finally fade, the two of them are left gazing breathlessly at each other, too happy for words.

"That was the most beautiful thing I've ever seen," Momota murmurs, remembering that he exists. Saihara seems to do the same, adding a hoarse affirmation.

Though still dazed, the lady blinks a few times, breaking out of her slack-jawed stupor to abruptly hoist an unsuspecting Iidabashi onto the great metal palm with her. He sputters, flushing a bright red. "Man, did you get fuckin' lucky or what?" she crows, punching his arm lightly. "You're soulmates with the one and only girl genius Iruma Miu!"

He laughs, quietly, but so, so fond. "Indeed I am. I'm Iidabashi Kiibo. It's a pleasure to meet you."

"Kiibo, huh? What'd I do to land such a cutie patoot?" Iidabashi reddens even further (if that's possible at all), and it's unclear if it's from the compliment or the usage of his given name. Iruma flusters as if it's contagious. "E-er, I mean, I knew I would! It's only natural that someone as gorgeous as me should have an equally bangin' BF, you know."

Momota barely notices the two quick buzzes issuing from his phone.

> ❤ ❤ GAME #1: MACHINE'S GIFT TO MAN: CONCLUDED ❤ ❤
> 
> ❤ ❤ RESULTS: CONGRATULATIONS IIDABASHI KIIBO AND IRUMA MIU! ❤ ❤
> 
> ❤ ❤ 2/16 LONELY HEARTS SAVED ❤ ❤

"Hey, you two voyeurs down there, scram! Me 'n my _soulmate_ need a little alone time, if you catch my drift. Go on! Go!" Iruma's voice registers and Saihara is quickly herding Momota out the door. In the background, they can hear a faint "Momota-kun, Saihara-kun, thanks for everything!" before the door slams closed.

"It's not a prank or a scam," Saihara pants, wiping his bangs out of his face. "How on earth...?"

"I dunno," Momota replies, feeling the beginnings of something welling up inside him. "But this means we have a chance."

Maybe that something is hope.

{...}

The rest of the day is uneventful. Well, Momota does find that someone has relocated all of the drinks he bought to the second shelf and squeezed all of the Panta bottles back where they were, but that's the least of his concerns right now. Still, he feels antsy, and after some deliberation he decides to resolve it by penning out another note to whoever this Panta goblin is.

It's hard to get to sleep. After getting back, Saihara had lapsed into a state of thorough embarrassment at his prior enthusiasm, and try as he might, Momota had been unable to coax him out of it. They ended up agreeing not to bring the game up excessively and retiring to their rooms. Now their pact has become a curse, for the strange and apparently legitimate love game is the only thing Momota can think about. He eventually achieves a fitful semisleep around one in the morning, and sinks into true unconsciousness about an hour later.

In the watery reality of this early morning dream, Momota's brain fills in a soulmate for him. He's wandering through a dark forest beneath a night sky oversaturated with stars that shouldn't be where they are, their bright trails lighting faint paths through the undergrowth.

"I know you're out there," he calls playfully into the darkness.

A few seconds later, he receives his answer. There's a muffled giggle whose origin he can't pinpoint. It might be behind him, might be in front of him, might be above him. "Then come find me!"

He's racing through the trees now, playing peekaboo with their hairy boughs under the supernatural starlight. "Catch me if you can," his soulmate's voice rings out. "Catch me, I dare you!"

He reaches a grassy clearing and wraps his arms around someone's waist. That someone lets out a bubbly giggle, crashing into Momota with a big old bear hug. The force of this impact makes them both tumble into the grass, laughing and rolling without a care in the world.

"Looks like I underestimated you again. Well, you've got me now."

They stare into each others' eyes and let the world wash away in hues of violet.

Momota wakes up feeling great, though he doesn't remember dreaming of anything.


End file.
